Tudor Dares to Win at the Canadian Grand Prix
The Visa Cash App Racing Bulls partner mirrors the precise, yet playful energy of its team.
If Monaco is Formula 1‘s old-money destination, Montreal is its cool younger cousin. The entire city comes alive with a festival-like atmosphere, marking the unofficial start of summer for Montrealers.
Last week, the streets filled with fans in team gear, while on the man-made Île Notre-Dame in Parc Jean-Drapeau and around Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, helicopters buzzed overhead and engines echoed across the St. Lawrence. Even with rain threatening throughout the weekend, the energy never wavered. Montreal is the sort of place where a young team like Visa Cash App Racing Bulls (VCARB) feels right at home.
As I watched Friday’s practice sessions, the usual favourites ripped around the track, but there was a buzz around VCARB. Formula 1’s scrappy younger sibling to Red Bull Racing, the team occupies a unique place on the grid: youthful, ambitious, and a little less buttoned-up than many of its rivals. Partnered with Tudor for the past three seasons, the team has helped launch the careers of stars including Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, Carlos Sainz, and Daniel Ricciardo. More recently, however, it’s a team that has started to step out of the shadows to establish its own identity.
While the team may not possess the pedigree or resources of Formula 1’s dominant powers, Racing Bulls has built a reputation for approaching the sport with a more youthful perspective. From splashy livery launches to an emphasis on fashion, culture, and music, the team has become one of Formula 1’s more modern and personality-driven outfits.
Meanwhile, racing is hardly unfamiliar territory for Tudor. The Swiss watchmaker, now celebrating its 100-year anniversary, has long maintained ties to motorsport, dating back to the late 1960s. More recently, the brand has supported initiatives ranging from the IMSA SportsCar Championship to the Dakar Rally. Last fall, its Tudor Pro Cycling Team claimed victory at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, further cementing the brand’s connection to elite competition.
To deepen the connection to the sport and the team, Tudor created a team-exclusive version of its Master Chronometer-certified Black Bay Ceramic for Racing Bulls, complete with a blue ceramic dial that matches the team’s vibrant livery.
For Liam Lawson, a 24-year-old New Zealander, the appeal of Tudor’s Black Bay Chrono Carbon 26 is obvious. Much like a Formula 1 car, it’s lightweight, strong, and built to perform under pressure. “In a sport where one-hundredth and one-thousandth of a second can decide a position, timing is everything,” he says. “Every session is about extracting maximum performance out of the car.”
Arvid Lindblad, Racing Bulls’ 18-year-old rookie, agrees and has quickly become attached to his own Black Bay Chrono, wearing it both trackside and in everyday life. “Timing is everything,” he says, “from the schedule you have to follow off and on track to the actual time that you spend in the car.”
Tudor has even loosened up itself, allowing its usual black-and-red logo to be transformed to pink on the team’s bright-pink Miami livery, and it has even created a watch to mark the event: the Black Bay Chrono Pink. Team CEO Peter Bayer notes this all helps connect fans to the bold, playful energy of VCARB. Bayer himself, having previously worked in snowboarding and with the Youth Olympic Games, certainly knows how to engage with younger audiences.
But beyond the flash, it’s the obsession with milliseconds, lightweight materials, and constant refinement that makes Formula 1 and watchmaking such natural partners. Both worlds are built around precision, reliability and performing when it matters most. For Lawson, that pursuit remains the real objective. “The focus is on extracting the maximum from myself and delivering the best possible performance every time I’m in the car,” he says.
VCARB may not have the history of Ferrari or the resources of Red Bull’s senior team, but their appeal comes from a willingness to challenge expectations. In Montreal, alongside Tudor, the team demonstrated that in modern motorsport, precision and performance are still essential—but a little personality doesn’t hurt either.
